Big Cartel vs Carbonmade: Comprehensive comparison guide for 2024

Final verdict

Big Cartel and Carbonmade cater to different needs, making them suitable for distinct user groups.

• 
  Big Cartel (Overall Grade: 5.8/10)
  
  is tailored for artists and small businesses looking to sell their creations online. It offers a straightforward setup, essential ecommerce features, and a variety of customizable templates. While it excels in simplicity and affordability, its limited scalability and fewer advanced features may not suit larger businesses. When comparing Big Cartel vs Carbonmade, Big Cartel is ideal for those prioritizing ease of use and basic ecommerce functionalities.
• 
  Carbonmade (Overall Grade: 4.4/10)
  
  is designed for creatives who want to showcase their work online. It provides fully customizable layouts, responsive designs, and advanced features for portfolio creation. Although it lacks ecommerce capabilities, Carbonmade stands out for its user-friendly interface and specialized tools for creatives. In the Big Cartel vs Carbonmade comparison, Carbonmade is perfect for users who need a professional portfolio without the need for coding skills.

Best for ecommerce

Verdict

: Big Cartel is the clear choice for ecommerce, while Carbonmade is not suitable for selling products online.

• 
  Big Cartel
  
  : Tailored for artists and makers, Big Cartel offers essential ecommerce features such as inventory tracking, sales analytics, and social media integrations. It supports small businesses with a straightforward setup process and customizable themes. However, it has limited scalability, making it ideal for smaller stores. In the Big Cartel vs Carbonmade comparison, Big Cartel stands out for its ecommerce capabilities.
• 
  Carbonmade
  
  : Designed for creatives to showcase their work, Carbonmade lacks any ecommerce features. It is perfect for photographers, illustrators, and designers who need a portfolio website but is not suitable for those looking to sell products online.

Best for informational & business websites

Verdict

: Big Cartel is better suited for informational and business websites, especially for small businesses and independent creators, while Carbonmade excels in creating visually appealing portfolios for creatives.

• 
  Big Cartel
  
  : Big Cartel is designed for artists and makers, offering a straightforward setup process and essential features like inventory management and sales tracking. Its customizable templates and ease of use make it a solid choice for small businesses looking to establish an online presence without needing advanced technical skills. With a score of 7.2, Big Cartel is a reliable option for informational websites.
• 
  Carbonmade
  
  : Carbonmade is tailored for creatives who want to showcase their work online. It provides fully customizable layouts and a range of features to create professional portfolios. While it excels in design functionalities, its focus on portfolio creation and lack of ecommerce capabilities make it less suitable for traditional business websites. With a score of 5.9, Carbonmade is ideal for users prioritizing visual presentation over business functionalities.

Detailed comparison

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Winner: Carbonmade.

If you’re looking for a platform that offers more creative control and a wide array of design features, Carbonmade is the preferred choice.

Big Cartel provides a variety of free, customizable templates designed to ensure that online stores look appealing on all devices. These templates are geared towards artists, creators, and small business owners, offering features like high-quality product displays and adjustable product grids without the need for coding knowledge. With over 15 different styles to choose from, Big Cartel’s templates allow for easy customization to fit any brand’s aesthetic, making it simple for anyone to start an online store quickly.

Big Cartel Themes

Compared to Big Cartel, Carbonmade does not have templates, the platform creates a personalized portfolio website based on the inputs of the users. Carbonmade offers a specialized platform for creatives to build personalized, professional portfolios with a wide range of features tailored to showcase their work effectively. The website builder supports responsive designs optimized for all devices, allows unlimited uploads of images and videos, including 4K content, and provides various premade blocks and layouts for customization without the need for external templates or platforms. Additionally, Carbonmade includes advanced features like gallery slideshows, gradient backgrounds, SEO optimization, and analytics to help users present their work in a dynamic and engaging way.

Wix Themes

🏆 Winner: Carbonmade

. With an ease of use score of 8.3, Carbonmade slightly outperforms Big Cartel, which scores 8.0. Carbonmade’s drag-and-drop interface, pre-designed layouts, and unique features like private portfolios and Before/After blocks make it exceptionally user-friendly for creatives. Big Cartel, while also easy to use, is more tailored for artists and small-scale sellers, offering a straightforward setup but fewer advanced features.

Learning Resources

🏆 Winner: Carbonmade

. Both platforms offer solid learning resources, but Carbonmade’s comprehensive video tutorials and detailed help center articles provide a more extensive guide for users, making the portfolio-building process straightforward even for those without coding skills.

Big Cartel is tailored for artists and makers, offering features that support small businesses in setting up an online store. Its ecommerce capabilities include easy product listing, customizable themes, inventory tracking, and sales analytics. It allows for integration with social media and other marketing tools. However, one of the downsides of Big Cartel is its limited scalability; it’s designed for smaller stores, offering fewer product listings and less advanced ecommerce features compared to platforms like 10Web or WooCommerce. This can be a limitation for businesses looking to expand their online presence significantly. Carbonmade, on the other hand, does not offer any ecommerce features, making it unsuitable for users looking to sell products online.

Big Cartel ecommerce features:

• Inventory tracking
• Sales analytics
• Social Media integrations
• Marketing tools

Carbonmade ecommerce features:

• There are no ecommerce features provided by Carbonmade

Ecommerce themes & templates

Big Cartel offers around 20 templates, each specifically designed to cater to the needs of ecommerce stores, providing a variety of options for creating an online store. In contrast, Carbonmade does not have any templates for ecommerce as it does not support ecommerce functionalities.

Product page customization

Big Cartel enables merchants to customize their product offerings with the Product Variants feature, supporting up to 150 variants per item, such as sizes, colors, and more, allowing for specific pricing and quantities for each variant. Additionally, for products with complex attributes, the Advanced Product Options offer a structured way to present multiple variations through up to three option groups per product, simplifying the shopping experience. This combination of features ensures that Big Cartel stores can efficiently manage and display a wide range of product options to meet diverse customer needs. Carbonmade does not have ecommerce capabilities, thus it’s not possible to have product pages.

Payment processing

Big Cartel supports payment processing through PayPal and Stripe, allowing a variety of payment methods including credit/debit cards and mobile payments like Apple Pay and Google Pay. The platform itself does not charge additional transaction fees, but standard processing fees from PayPal and Stripe apply. Big Cartel also offers POS capabilities, primarily through Stripe terminal for Android and iOS for in-person sales, enhancing flexibility for both online and offline business operations. Carbonmade does not have payment processing capabilities.

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Winner: Carbonmade

. Carbonmade, with a score of 7.6, offers a range of features designed for creatives to build personalized, professional online portfolios without requiring coding knowledge. Its editor provides responsive design across devices, 4K video support, unlimited image and video uploads, and premade blocks for customization. The platform also includes unique features such as private portfolios, a before/after block, gallery slideshows, and a talent pool to connect with other creatives and potential clients.

Big Cartel’s editor, scoring 6.8, is designed with simplicity in mind, catering primarily to artists and small-scale sellers. Users can easily customize their online store’s look and feel without needing advanced technical skills, thanks to its user-friendly interface. The editor allows for the customization of themes, addition of products, and setup of different pages like home, about, and contact pages. While it may not offer the same level of design flexibility as Carbonmade, Big Cartel’s editor is optimized for ease of use and basic eCommerce functionalities.

Mobile editor/app

🏆

Winner: Big Cartel

. Big Cartel offers a mobile app that allows users to manage their online store directly from their mobile device. Key features include the ability to add and edit products, process orders, check inventory, and view store statistics. This app provides a convenient way for store owners to keep their business running smoothly on-the-go, without the need for a computer. The interface is user-friendly, ensuring that even those with minimal technical skills can easily navigate and make use of its functionalities. However, website design changes can only be applied on the desktop version.

Carbonmade, on the other hand, does not have a dedicated mobile editor app. This limits its functionality for users who need to make quick updates or manage their portfolios on-the-go. Carbonmade focuses on providing a robust desktop-based portfolio creation experience, which may be sufficient for users who primarily work from a computer but lacks the flexibility offered by Big Cartel’s mobile app.

In summary, Big Cartel stands out for its mobile app capabilities, making it a more versatile option for users who need to manage their online store from anywhere. Carbonmade’s absence of a mobile editor app highlights its desktop-centric approach, which may not meet the needs of users requiring mobile accessibility.

Overall Result

:

Carbonmade leads

. Carbonmade scores 7.2, offering a more comprehensive product testing experience compared to Big Cartel, which scores 5.9. Carbonmade provides a trial version that allows users to test all features, making it easier to evaluate the platform’s full capabilities. Big Cartel, while offering a free plan, limits the testing of premium features.

Big Cartel offers a free plan and affordable paid plans, while Carbonmade provides more features at slightly higher price points with a discount for annual subscriptions.

🏆

Winner: Carbonmade

Carbonmade edges out Big Cartel with its managed hosting and unlimited storage, making it a more reliable choice for creatives needing robust hosting solutions. Big Cartel, while user-friendly and affordable, lacks detailed hosting information, which may be a concern for users requiring transparency and reliability.

🏆 Winner: Tie

Both Big Cartel and Carbonmade have similar approaches to website speed optimization, with neither platform providing extensive details on their strategies or improvements in Core Web Vitals.

Big Cartel is a user-friendly website builder tailored for artists and makers, offering a straightforward setup process and essential features like inventory management and sales tracking. However, it does not provide specific information on speed optimization strategies or Core Web Vitals improvements. Load times and PageSpeed scores for Big Cartel can vary widely based on the level of optimization and the complexity of the website.

Carbonmade, on the other hand, is designed for creatives looking to showcase their work online. It offers customizable layouts and pre-designed templates, making it easy to create and manage online portfolios. Similar to Big Cartel, Carbonmade does not disclose detailed information on its speed optimization strategies or Core Web Vitals improvements. Load times and PageSpeed scores for Carbonmade also vary depending on the level of optimization.

In conclusion, both Big Cartel and Carbonmade have room for improvement in terms of transparency and strategies for website speed optimization. Their performance in this area is comparable, resulting in a tie for this category.

🏆 Winner: Big Cartel.

Big Cartel scores 5.8, offering a range of integrations that enhance its ecommerce capabilities. These include tools for email marketing, shipping, customer engagement, and analytics, making it a versatile choice for small businesses and independent creators. Carbonmade, with a score of 0, does not support any plugins or integrations, focusing solely on portfolio creation without additional extensibility.

Big Cartel’s integrations, such as Mailchimp, Printful, and Google Analytics, provide users with the tools needed to automate and expand their online stores, giving it a clear advantage in this category.

🏆

Overall Winner: Big Cartel

. Big Cartel offers a more robust set of marketing tools, including SEO, email marketing, and ads and promotions, making it a better choice for small businesses and independent creators. Carbonmade, while excellent for showcasing portfolios, lacks many essential marketing features.

🏆 Winner: Carbonmade

. In the comparison of Big Cartel vs Carbonmade, Carbonmade edges out slightly in the customer support category. Carbonmade offers a ticket-based support system where users can submit inquiries via email and typically receive responses within a few hours. While it lacks live support, the quick response times help mitigate this drawback.

Big Cartel, on the other hand, provides customer support from Monday through Friday, 8am to 6pm EST, with a team of twelve members available to assist. Users are encouraged to log in for faster assistance, and support is available via email. However, the limited support hours and lack of live support options can be a disadvantage for users needing immediate help.

🏆

Winner: Big Cartel

. Big Cartel takes a more comprehensive approach to security, offering SSL encryption for all shops and custom domains, and adhering to strict data protection protocols. While it relies on third-party gateways for PCI compliance, its focus on confidentiality and data integrity makes it a more secure option for online stores.

Carbonmade, on the other hand, prioritizes the security of user data through physical, electronic, and managerial safeguards. However, it lacks specific details on website security measures, which is reflected in its lower security score. This makes Big Cartel the better choice for users who prioritize robust security features for their online presence.

🏆 Winner: None

. Both Big Cartel and Carbonmade do not offer any AI capabilities. They focus on providing straightforward, user-friendly tools for creating and managing online stores and portfolios, respectively, without the integration of AI technologies.

🏆 Winner: Carbonmade

. Both Big Cartel and Carbonmade have significant limitations in user management, but Carbonmade edges out slightly due to its higher user management score.

• 
  Big Cartel
  
  : Allows only one user to build and edit a website. This limitation makes it less suitable for collaborative projects or businesses that require multiple users to manage the site.
• 
  Carbonmade
  
  : Similarly, Carbonmade allows only one user to manage and edit a website. However, it scores slightly higher in user management, indicating a marginally better experience for the single user.

Both platforms are designed for simplicity and ease of use, making them ideal for individual creators and small businesses that do not require extensive user management capabilities.

Additional Features

User Feedback

User feedback on Big Cartel highlights its simplicity and affordability as key advantages, making it a popular choice for small businesses and startups looking to establish an online presence quickly. Users appreciate the ease of setting up and customizing their online stores, the flat monthly fees without per-item charges, and the platform’s intuitive design and mobile management capabilities. However, limitations in features compared to more comprehensive platforms, restricted customization options, and lack of advanced integrations or inventory management for specific items are noted drawbacks. Despite these concerns, Big Cartel is praised for its cost-effectiveness and user-friendly approach, particularly for those new to e-commerce or with smaller inventories.

Users appreciate Carbonmade for its ease of use, modern design templates, and no-code platform, which simplifies creating professional portfolios. However, some express a desire for a freemium plan and note limitations in customization and mobile site loading times. The platform is highly recommended for creatives, particularly illustrators and graphic designers, for its variety of design options and efficient customer service. Despite concerns over pricing, the overall sentiment is positive, with users finding value in Carbonmade’s ability to showcase their work effectively and streamline portfolio management.

FAQ